Attempt

I am writing this to try and express myself, because that’s what I need to do more, apparently.

I don’t know if I am so capable of that any more. Nowadays, when I feel intensely emotional, I just get very nauseous. The past couple of weeks – or maybe for about a month now – I’m not too sure what’s happened to me. Whatever it is, it’s cleverly subtle – it’s not at all paced or regular. Happy times become far too prominent in my memory. I hung out with A--- (a good friend of S---) last Saturday and it is still burned into my memory. Part of me fears that I’m getting a bit attracted to him, because of the way I am at the moment. I read a text by Tzvetan Todorov, which is basically a theoretical text on the fantastic in literature. He talks about how very young children, druggies and mentally-ill people (chiefly psychotics and schizophrenics especially) find the limits between physical and spiritual matter (or somesuch) merging. This is what forms a key part of the supernatural element in fantastic texts. That is how I feel at the moment. I feel like I have become very permeable, so that everything penetrates me with even more force than usually. Perversely enough, all this does is make me reject life even more. I hate people. I hate my life. I got the Central line yesterday, after uni, as usual, and instead of reading Todorov or listening to music, I just stared into space. The carriage was packed, and I was kept close to the side where the doors don’t open between Mile End and Holborn. I was so close, it was fascinating. I looked at the yellow line and thought about what it might be like to tip backwards when the doors opened. I think it was at Chancery Lane, I looked at the gap between the wall of the tunnel and the side of the train. The size of it captivated me. I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be squashed between there. How would you die? Would you die? What would be the use if you didn’t? It made me smile.

I feel like I’ve become slightly more provocative. I don’t feel like humouring people’s feelings. I don’t care about them. Being all alone while other people in my French / Modern Languages classes are all chummy together still hits me, but I feel even less like talking to them. I hate them for the effort they would exact from me. People are fucking stupid, dull, hypocritical, selfish morons. I am not sacrificing anything for anyone. I wish I could die. I do not want to have any links to anyone. People are such useless, inconstant things. Everyone has to go and live their own fucking life – well, go on. The world does not have time for the likes of me; I know that. But who cares? It’s just as Cee-lo says in the song of the same name – who cares? I’d like to melt a bit and feel all like a bit of attention from my boyfriend and/or my cousin would make a difference. Maybe it would. The thought of it makes me feel sick. I don’t feel able to relate to my boyfriend at the moment. The thought of him confuses me too much. Any kind of sexual desire (HA!) usually lasts about 2 minutes – literally. No fire in these loins! Not even a spark. He irritates the hell out of me, to be honest. My bad mood will infect him, and besides, he’s got his own life and problems (fucked-up finger to worry about). I feel like cutting myself off from him completely – let him continue to live his separate life. I don’t see how the gulf between us can be negotiated. I am a totally different person to the one he fell for.

My family – let’s not even go there. Living torture is the best way I will describe it. Being a female is only another disadvantage. It makes me feel cold and really sick. I cannot be anyone’s mother and I don’t want to be anyone’s wife or mother-in-law. I hate the thought of sacrificing myself for others. Fuck you, if you’re so bothered about what to eat, go to a fucking restaurant. Get take-away. Hire a maid. Don’t ask me, I’d rather die. I wish it would just happen already. I wish I could deaden my mind and die peacefully to all the things that trouble me. If I live, I will become my sister, always stressing and whining about everything with cessation. If I die, I might get some peace. I wish I cared enough to take an overdose. I kind of wish someone would just murder me already. That’d at least be an interesting way to go.

I can just imagine people’s eyebrows raising, thinking “Oh, how selfish.” Oh, how fucking selfish indeed. Go fuck yourselves. What amazing merits have people shown me, that I should cling to them? Why should I trail round after them, in constant need of reassurance, while they try and bat me off to live their own lives? I'm bored of being a reliable coper. 'You'll get through. You'll get through.' FUCK YOU, NO, I WON'T! What do you say to THAT, eh?

I hate them. I hate them all. I hate you all. Humankind is a stupid, self-contradictory mess which will always damn itself when it looks like there might be hope. We don’t need a God to blame for the mistakes we make. Fucking morons. To Hell with us all.

Death Is Certain - Royce Da 5'9

ROYCE DA 5'9" LYRICS

"Something's Wrong With Him"
(feat. Carlos "6 July" Broady)

[Royce Da 5'9" + (6 July)]
Uhh, yeah, my conference calls with 'Los and Kino
consists of - (Nigga tone it down, there's way too much killin)
Of course I ignore 'em, a poor man talk
I don't give a fuck if I throw my poor fans off
Pathetic war done entered my brain and permanently changed me
Now I'm angry so FUCK a metaphor
FUCK hip-hop, hip-hop sucks!
You got, niggaz on top swingin from 2Pac's NUTS!
It's like, I could go in the lab
and try to write somethin that's nice or bright but I will be holdin back
My scripture's in the dark
Deep-rooted soldier inside my soul, uncontrollable temper like "The Hulk's"
My wife don't like my album, it's way too dark for women
She say it sound like I hold grudges
She rather listen to Joe Budden's, no disrespect aight?
But FUCK a party now and everybody like

[Chorus: Royce + (6 July)]
(What's wrong witchu nigga? Every song you killin)
(Every rhyme you spit is violently put)
Lethal, BUT - I have no problem
with puttin this gun down and beatin yo' ass up
I was taught rhyme from the heart, they will feel you
I like the dark, you cut on them lights, I will kill you
(Something's wrong with him)

[Royce Da 5'9" + (6 July)]
(Just like his pops
He don't give a fuck if you like him or not
He's a major problem) I will slap yo' ass in church
And apologize to Jesus later, punk!
Why am I hot and you not, and why is you rich?
And why I ain't got SHIT in my pocket but lint?
This ain't rap no mo', this not a flow
This is beef, there's a couple street niggaz that got to go (bloaw!)
My name is Nickel (haha) I'm from the suburbs (yeah!)
It's only a ten-minute drive to come and get you (yeah)
TIRED of you hoes
I will slap snot side-ways outta ya nose, PARTNAH! (partnah!)
I know we got drama
But I will still show up at your funeral and hug yo' ugly-ass momma
Everybody wanna know why the flow is so bad
(Why is you so mad?) Everybody askin

[Chorus]

[Royce Da 5'9"]
I'm a natural since - I wrote "Black Girl"
I hope that you don't think
that I won't smack yo' bitch
Cause I will clap her if she happen to be witchu, when I kill you
You can get ideas, nobody compares you thugs
I will put out the bub on top of yo' head
This .22 rifle, be shootin them bouncin bullets
The enter into your head and exit out yo' foot
Ride off as soon as my clip turns, you click and
[click click, BOOM] them choppers is lookin for eyeballs (yeah)
You could bring yo' roughest toughest thug
that's jealous just tell him to touch me, I will fuck him up!
I will knock his ass OUT
And if I can't beat him I will grab my heater and POP his ass!
FUCK yo' life, stripes I will shock yo' hood
And I ain't never dyin, knock on wood - whattup 'Los?

[Chorus]

Goddamn Moods

I was feeling all horny until today, but then I got a text from S--- at 4.08 saying 'Skype in 20 minutes?' - which I MISSED completely and only saw about 38 minutes ago.

You shouldn't beat yourself up about stuff I know, but the evil irony of it has just trashed my mood completely. I've really started to miss him in the past couple of days - it's set in really badly. I had been HOPING we could talk. And then, I missed my chance because my phone stayed upstairs in my bag all day! On top of that, I got soaked good and proper today around the lunch hour(s). My hair, WHICH I WASHED YESTERDAY, got drenched. The stuff in my bag (a present from him - cue more nostalgia) was barely protected. Which is why my phone ended up staying in there all evening... >_< It all comes full circle! Oh well, Bitch is hassling me to get off. Better run...

A Much-Needed Post

There are times in your life which are, for want of a better word, utterly BLAARGH. The feckless senselessness of that word sums it up - a mad mix of fear, frustration and disbelief. Otherwise known (by me, at least) as 'grey areas,' these are the kind of moments which we should welcome for humanity as a whole, because they help further our advancement by pressing us to think deeper about things. On an individual scale however, they can just feel a bit unfair. Yes, change has to come, but it has a nasty habit of coming all at once so that you suddenly feel as if you're riding The Twister with a desperately-mooing cow behind, looking up your knickers.

Wow, that was almost deep! I have been leafing through our astrology books in yonder C------- while attempting to avoid doing the minimum amount of book-shelving, and apparently the period 2000-4000 is the age of Aquarius, which means we can expect lots of pioneering breakthroughs in the scientific fields, and face up to totally new ways of thinking about things. Or something. The main gist of it seemed to be that it's all going to be about newness and change. I also read that apparently at the age of 19, one enters a Scorpio year. The only real thing that stuck there was it saying that Scorpio years are 'make-or-break' after the over-diplomatic / indecisive Libra years (that's a mix of paraphrasing and quoting, don't sue me, I'm not claiming they're my own words!).

Now, you could dismiss this, fairly correctly, as bollocks. Which year of your life isn't make-or-break, in some way? Nonetheless, that got me thinking quite separately that Scorpio or no, this really has been, and will continue to the end to be, one hell of a year. It might not be over yet, but I still need to do my little Cancerian retrospective, because there's so much to examine.

My eldest sister got married. This should be simple, but puh-LEASE, it's an Indian wedding! The months before went into planning and preparing it like loons, plus my family (second-eldest sister especially) reiterating doubts about sending my sister into such a family as my Jeej's is. The wedding day was a tidal wave of emotion, with my calmness unfortunately evaporating when faced with so many self-repressing females. Typically Moonchild, I gauged the hidden mood (without too much effort, I mean, come on, the bride was my sister too!) and expressed it for those who could not - my mum, my second sister, my sister's best friend. Now, we have to hear about the bust-ups with her hubby every now and again, which are usually sudden and explosive; the bitchiness of her mother-in-law who just wants to control her, her stupid sister-in-law, their collective uselessness. It has become a huge, wearying circus, one which never quite seems to settle down, and so, every now and again, my mum goes into a tizzy as to whether she's going to come and stay with us, or try and divorce him, or something. Good God.

My second eldest sister's getting married. Therefore, we've leapt rapidly into the planning stage with lots of aggro - her angsting about how it's going to be after she's married, reinforcing verbally just how reluctant she is to get married, being depressed and cynical... One minute she's getting huffy over the thought of doing everything for his family herself, the next she's saying vehemently, and venomously, that men are utterly useless and thereby showing us wordlessly that she has decided, angrily, to go along with just everything my mum has fed us about married life - 'Nine times out of ten, the woman has to give in.'

Wonderful. I often feel compelled to ask her, 'Why are you marrying him? One minute you're all cute over him, the next you're reeling off all these problems you're going to have to face.' She too, in a more forceful way than my other sister, is just tiring and cacophonous. I smile before her anti-male rants, because I have a guy who is beyond her imagining - he enjoys cooking and he does it incredibly well! However, the unpleasant air eventually gets to you - not only to me, irritatingly sensitive though I am, but also to my mum. Of course my dad and brother don't have a clue, but they have been part of this stereotype my sister dreads, and so it is not something for them to relate to. Thus it seems my mum will spend her future just worrying about the two of them all the time, both for totally different but intrinsically linked reasons. How ironic. She thought she was teaching us how to face the hard ways of life as an Indian woman, but all she transferred was a curse.

Still, I am wise to this, so there is some hope for me, albeit not very much. During my jaded jags, I break down and feel myself bending to this bleak and loveless view of the world. The world certainly becomes more black-and-white. White becomes oblivion and escape through suicide - or becoming a 'gori,' a full white girl, being disowned by my family and severing all ties with my culture. People can call me a coconut as much as they want, but I don't fucking care, because at least I'm not a hypocrite. I know more than them, and I can see what is going wrong, what is at the root of our fucking problems. I CAN SEE THE FUCKING FUTURE, BITCHES. But they don't want me to able to touch it. Black is be more Asian, join the walking caricatures of .........., fatten Tradition's bloated arse a bit further and forget that I was ever different. But fuck that, I'm a Cancerian. I'm all wrong from the start. I choose colour, I choose the humanitarian approach, I choose cautious optimism and determination. I'd rather be Brikh, British and agnostic / Sikh, not Brindian, pretending to be a Sikh and hypocritical.

I realise I have to thank Mr. Gettings for this in a lot of ways. How he came to be so goddamn perceptive, I do not know. Maybe he isn't, and maybe he's just bold. But, when he proposed that essay title to me, 'Sikhs are natural iconoclasts and freedom fighters. Discuss,' he GAVE ME A CLUE. I couldn't see all the little connections then that I can now. When I looked back on it, I began to wonder how he could have been so smart. I sent him 'Indian Woman,' my angry poem, and he gave me this essay. There was a link there, and it has become the basis of my ideas and birthed something totally new from my head, the way Athene came from Zeus.

The other uncertainty comes from this being the first time that my boyfriend and I have spent so much time apart from one another. It has been bad in the respect that it has brought all my insecurities to the fore. I have a tendency to feel that my problems are unimportant, that I shouldn't trust anyone with them, that I can only rely on myself... This all comes from the 'typically Indian' mindset doled out to me courtesy of my family. Obviously this caused problems with S---, because he wanted me to talk to him and open up. I, however, felt that he was off having a good time, so I didn't need him, and didn't want him to see that I was unhappy. It was like competition - 'who's coping the best?' Ludicrous, but being away from him, and missing his influence made me regress emotionally. Thank God we got over it. It led to us having one of the worst fights we've had in a long time. I've been making him cry too much, and I feel terrible.

Now that that has finished, he tells me about a girl called Emma. He met her on an Oxford open day, they talk from time to time and get on well enough. She broke up with her boyfriend and gave him her number and asked him to call her, etc. etc. I'm not particularly worried, even though he feels worried that she might fancy him. I say that maybe she doesn't have many good guy mates, and that's why she asked you to call her. We Skyped very briefly today, and he said he was still worried about it. I said she was probably too cut up over the split to think of fancying him, and he agreed, but still sounded unsure. So I asked him why he thought she might like him. And he said, she's one of those people, you know, who you don't talk to much, but you still get on really well with whenever you do? A-ha, I thought. I wasn't upset or afraid, or anything. I could see what was going on, it was what had happened to me many times before when I feared I liked A--- or something like that. I warned him my thoughts were 'horrible,' and suggested that perhaps a tiny part of him, which he was reluctant to acknowledge, found her attractive, hence the angsting. This left him even more uncertain, which left me quite sure that it was probably the case.

So how should I feel about this? I'm not necessarily right, but I have a gut instinct for these things and it is zoning right on in. I thought, with a certain grim amusement, that it could only be karam, completing its cycle. I throw up my hands and accept it; I deserve to feel even slightly threatened. However, I don't. This is maybe exactly what I needed, because I have absolute faith in him, more than he may even have in himself, just as he said to me a month or so ago when I feared I would be attracted to A---. Emma is a blessing in disguise, because she may have removed some of my biggest demons. He is not going to cheat, he is not going to leave me. This is a way for him to realise how intensely beautiful he is, so much so that other people besides me can see it. I am glad because I love him. So, so much. If I'm wrong, how Attic-tragic it will be. But I trust, and I believe. With all the pre- and post-nuptial madness around me, I think the universe owes me one.

She Be Sicknin'!

ARRRRR, yes, I be! It's not actually Talk Like A Pirate Day yet (that's September 19th - thank yous go out to David Langdon for that rather random fact), but I'm getting in the mood early. I have decided to be a pig(-let? -ling?) and just wallow in my own disgustingness. I mean, have you ever actually LOOKED at the faces of those pink mar-maals (I had an attack of the ol' Toffee-Nose there...) and seen how happy they are to be rollin' in the mud? Well, I have! And so, I think that right now I really deserve to just be all smurky (smug and smirky) about how happy I am. Wait a minute - that makes no sense! Usually people are smug because they're doing the whole 'I'm so happy... so MUCH happier than you,' thing. I, however, am more along the lines of 'I'm happy... very happy... it's nice not to fight... yay.' LOL.

Alright, the happ'ness (the happ'nin hap'ness, bro :-P) is now under threat because my neck and shoulders kind of ache and I am so FARKIN' tired. But I will soldier on regardless! Sitting up a bit more appears to be helping. I must resist the urge to just lay my FACE on the keyboard and have a little long rest. Thank God I've decided not to take any extra days next week - hopefully that way I might have some chance of restoring my sleeping pattern before uni starts again on the 26th. I really must start sleeping earlier though, because I'm going to have to get up painful early. The latest I'll be able to get up will be 7. Thank God it's only 1 semester, and thank God it'll be winter. I can bathe the night before and sleep in peace without having to worry about sweating and smelling. Although, now that I think about it, there's a distinct possibility that some of my French courses might begin really early...

*few minutes later* Oh, thank God, they all are 11-1 from what I can see so far. I think the rest of my English courses are fine too. Just the Epic-Milton-Pope one... oh well, someone's going to take over from me soon, (I'm at work...) so I better be gone. I'll rapidly and garbled-ly detail why I have been and am fairly happy:

I love my boyfriend so much, he is so great and wonderful and gorgeous, that all I can do is go mad thinking about how he feels and how I won't actually get to touch him for close to another month and then about 4-5 months after that. I accept wholeheartedly that I am the source of most of our problems. I'm too bloody sensitive. But I'm working on it! And he... he is GREAT. So there's hope for us yet. Oooh, he is so sweet. I want to eat him. :-P

Thought I would throw that in there for a bit of excitement. Nothing like a bit of cannibalism to stir up the cliché-sick masses! Hi ho, hi ho, and off to shelve I go... :-(

Stuck To It!

(Note: I posted this yesterday, but due to some weirdness, I had to delete and re-post it today).

Yes, I am actually here as I said I would be! Don't think it's just you that's thrilled with my attendance - I'd love to be less of a flake, less forgetful and overly emotional, but now especially I can't help it (lack of sleep... TOM... as mentioned yesterday).

I am in a very strange place at the moment. I'll start from the beginning: on the 28th of August (nearly a fortnight ago), S------- headed off to Groningen in Holland for 6 months. I knew that I was going to find it hard to cope without him, whether it came sooner or later. So, to try and 'prep' myself, I worked myself up a bit the night before after doing the washing-up (kitchen TABLE drama, HAHA) by listening to weepies. Ambulance by TV On The Radio and Prototype by André 3000 tend to do the biz when I need them to. I cried, I purged, I was trying to remove the irritation before it happened.

Now, that sums it up, really - I was obviously going to have to suffer anyway. Last week, I got my dues. Everything went wrong - stress over uni work that I still haven't done, a strong sense of isolation, bodily woes, lack of sleep, fights with my family - it didn't take much to make me cry. S------ kept saying he would talk to me. I was feeling suicidal because it didn't seem like things were going to get better anytime soon. The lack of sleep was chronic - it made everything much, much worse and magnified my emotions by, like, 50. Obviously, because he was busy going out with his friends and settling in and whatever, he let me down 3 times in a row. So I got to hating him. The mere mention or thought of his name could make my throat lock, then lead to me bursting out crying before feeling intensely nauseous. It made me rather depressed to realise that I should expect him to break, rather than keep, his promises. I remember saying (probably to my cousin) that my heart was broken. And it was, because I felt that he’d lied to me.

Thus, I sent the following email to him, titled ‘Enough’:

‘I don't want to talk to you on Skype. I'm not going to make any arrangements or promises, and I don't expect you to either. Stop telling me you'll talk to me this day or that evening, because you can't stick to it.’

… and changed my MSN name to “Love? What the fuck is that shit? DON’T DO IT, KIDS!” Upon taking note of these two things, he rang me while I was in bed. I was obviously rather disgruntled with him. He asked what he’d done wrong, and then I started crying and told him. He felt incredibly guilty and then cried a bit too. We fixed it, though.

Today, however, I made him cry by being a bit cold, indifferent and ambivalent. I couldn’t help it, though - I felt like he was too busy to email or text me, when it turned out he hadn’t been doing ANYTHING at all. Obviously that pissed me off, and what with TOM being around, I was getting that horrible ambivalence towards him, where I just don’t feel able to relate and get over myself. We fixed it – again. It’s not good though, and this blog post will help remind me of how I need to be more mature and selfless. Fuck the rest of the world – ultimately it’s only him that matters, I never loved anyone else as much and as eagerly. DEFFOS not my family. Speaking of that, The Boy is hassling me, so time to go and ensure this blog remains uninvestigated by him. More self-serving noodle served up soon ;-P.

P.S.: Lily Allen is SO GREAT. She really is. I have totally fallen in love with her album. I think it actually deserves FIVE STARS! However, American thick people (I'm assuming they're American by the way they've managed to somehow miss the fact that she has a London accent) have transcribed her lyrics rather shittily, leading to me having to correct at least 3 of her songs - after all, I had to go by those and they don't even make sense in places! Sample:

'And don't you feel it's all the same,
Some sick game and it's not insincere,'

(from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilyallen/everythingsjustwonderful.html
Obviously the lyrics websites all just copy off of each other, so they've ALL got them wrong).

What the fuck?! It's NOT insincere? Why, then, would she be complaining?! I ask you, honestly. It's things like that that just made me think go on my little GeekMission(TM)...

Too Hot, Too Hot

God, I have REALLY got to post on here more often! What with the increased fatigue and isolation, though, it often feels like way too much effort. My brother is currently doing coursework and his UCAS personal statement all the time anyway, which doesn't leave much room (or privacy) for typing up posts, now, does it? I could do what I have done before, and write out blog posts before putting them online. However, this has been roundly unsuccessful because:
a) About three of the five times I forced myself to try writing things down, I ended up getting bored and recording myself speaking my thoughts into my mobile phone instead. This has, ironically, just doubled my workload because now I have to listen to them again (while cringing both inwardly and outwardly at my voice prattling on) and 'transcribe' them into proper blog posts. So clearly, these are never going to see the light of day.
b) One of the five times (the first!), I wrote a bit, realised I was fed up with my increasingly self-aggrandising navel-gazing, and my fountain pen, and left it as a half page of gibble.
c) When I did finally manage to get one down, and actually enjoy the catharsis of scribbling away scathingly (about my siblings, quelle surprise!) , it spread over about 3 pages and I absolutely could not be arsed to type it up.

That's what it comes down to really - I'm just a fookin' lazy-arse. My constant exhaustion-through-lack-of-sleep and fraternal-monopolisation-of-the-PC are making it much worse. But yeah, I'm 'ere now, might as well get a world-class moan in. If anything gets left over, I'll be able to post it tomorrow (woohoo!) because I'm home alone.

1) I'm so, so tired. All the time. Sleep comes randomly and tends to be infrequent.
2) I'm so, so lonely. All the time. Friends' calls come randomly and tend to be infrequent.
3) I'm so, so bloated. All the time. Digestion fluctuates randomly and freedom of pot belly tends to be infrequent.

Just realised the nice little 'abc, 123' thing going on with my bullet points. That's great, I'll summon up The Jackson 5 next time I'm suffering at work due to all or any of the above and can't remember how to strict order things (I'm a librarian, for those of you who are left cold by the jargon. Not a real one though - I don't hand out reservations or papers to people, and I don't have an MA in Information, Something). The lovely rhythm will, however, have to be ruined, because Dewey tends to be rather prolific. Shame, dat. Then - THEN, this has just occurred to me (can ya tell?!) - I can mentally break out into that, er, song by The Go! Team which has the lyric "Two four six eight ten!"sung in a highly excitable manner. This, of course, will make me think nostalgically of kids playing 'jump-rope' (I am not an American) - or skipping, as we call it - and Hey Arnold!, and all my good work will have gone down the pan because I will be off into the heady land of Fatigue-Friendly Procrastination and word association.

Blimey, I surprise even myself. I know late-night is meant to be my inspired time, and these entries often take a turn for the unexpected, but that was (sur)really something. I have been unpleasantly hot and sweaty and prone to feel temperature changes a lot this week, along with the emotional erratica of last week. Somehow I don't think menopause will be that much of a surprise when it comes... Anyway, I appear to have broken the cycle of PMT at last, so hopefully now the excessive tiredness (y'know, feeling like you're going die after lunch at work around 2 in the afternoon) and excessive perspiration (y'know, feeling like you're going to die bathed in your own fluids, or have people not-so-subtly trying to avoid you subtly). My main gripe of this week is I'm just so TIRED. Even when I sleep with time to spare, it never quite seems to be enough, and I always wake up, whether it's because I've nearly fallen off the bed or banged my elbow (been sleeping upside-down recently. Don't ask... I'll explain tomorrow). My eyes feel worn out and periodicity (hah) is making it at least five times worse. Being on the PC as much as I have been hasn't helped either. Since I'm getting really isolated and have no life, I find myself just chatting to Colin and whoever else I feel isn't too much on MSN. It seems to be A Time For Leos - I'm getting on well with him and Saki's little brother. I've realised I don't have to make too much effort with either of them. It's a good feeling. Especially right now.

Well more tomorrow, I feel like falling unwashed and unbrushed into bed. I should've on arrival, really, to set my sleeping pattern - but ack VELL, ACK VELL!

My Shoegazing Summer

I return! Whether this is a soaring, triumphal, brass-band comeback, or a lone trumpet-parp that sounds more like an apologetic whisper, I don't know. My summer, however, has been HUUUGE. Enormous. There was so much felt and experienced, I was eventually discouraged from posting in every single instance. Let's just say that if it had been a drug trip, it probably would've been the sort that culminates in you either dying, or feeling like you're going to shortly.

The headlines so far, then:
a) I realised my sixth-form form tutor Mr. Gettings was my soulmate. Or rather, I acknowledged it to myself at last. Don't stop reading in horror! I lost contact with him for a while after starting at uni, but I emailed him to tell him my first-year results, and it created a kind of email chain where we emailed each other pretty much every day or so. He's not my soulmate the way S------- is... I'll explain it shortly. He made me stick at writing poetry, rather than just the odd one every year or whatever :-P, and we talked poetry a lot in our emails. Except that now because I'm not a student any more, I think he was able to open up a bit more, and as a result, I got to see some of his poetry. It was good because it stopped me feeling that my melancholy over missing him was mostly just due to my sentimentality: the intense bond was not just in my head. He also challenges me a lot which I enjoy because it turns my ways of thinking on their head - it's incredibly stimulating (lol). Anyway, he sent me this course of emails towards the end describing how he formulates a poem. I couldn't pick up much from the first draft, but I discerned some possible references to me in it. Then, I just thought "Nah." He sent me two more versions, and it took me a while to realise that he was re-drafting and editing the same poem. Finally, I got this email:

'I have struggled with your poem, but having slept on it I have finally given birth to level 3. So here it is, the actual intended poem. (Sort of). I hope it is OK and you've seen the creative process that I've gone through. I really , really won't email out anymore this summer, So , ....., in touch soon. D'

The poem was written for me - about me (obviously). I skimmed over it at work, and got a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I read it in the evening and cried my eyes out. It's called Somebody's Child and if anyone ever writes anything half as beautiful about me again, I'll be ridiculously lucky. Even if it wasn't about me, it's still gorgeous. S------- read it and was also silenced by its power. I love my blog and readers, but I don't think I'm going to post it here, just out of respect for him.

2) I am questioning my cultural identity, etc. etc. This is partly Gettings' fault; he sent me this email in response to my sending him an angry piece called Indian Woman:

'Re. the subject of your poem Indian Woman; I think you are a Punjabi, Sikh, intellectual, second/third generation immigrant British woman.

Look on the bright side!

No man is an island, entire of itself

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

it tolls for thee.

You are also part of a society and part of a tradition, Kaur.

So you don't like it. Drop out of Sikhdom and wait tables while you go through university; but before you act hastily ask yourself: How will I be to my children? How will I preserve their identity in an environment that is often challenging and maybe hostile? Solidarity with your group gives you some security. Sikhs are natural iconoclasts and freedom fighters! Decide.

PS. Write a coherent well argued essay on the subject IN PROSE. Write a polemic if you like.

x David.'

D'you see why I love him?! D'you see why I don't want to lose contact? He is a constant, much-needed kick up the mental arse (lol). I'm also reading Londonstani, the hyped Gautam Malkani novel that's set where I live! Whoo. This has in turn introduced me to Pickled Politics, a new addition to my links. Go visit, and see what they make of it, and of Nirpal Dhaliwal's review(another Indian author whose novel Tourism was competing with it...): http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/422 The comments are also hilarious and really worth reading. S---'s unexpectedly strong reaction to Londonstani really made me want to read it, and now I am wondering what I am. It's much better than all the depressed, isolated navel-gazing that makes me decide exactly what I am, with unsurprisingly self-destructive conclusions. Am I coconut? Am I in the middle? Is it about my real opinion, or what a slavish little part of me (and my family) wants? Do I really want to be 'gori,' or am I seeing the error of my ways?

I think soon I'll probably decide, like S---, that it's all just "things," and I don't give a shit. But wahey! Long live the Positive Shoegazing Revolution. Better than being oblivious (like a typical 'rude' girl or boy... or my brother) or ripping the shit out of yourself (indie types). My love of hip-hop looks like all making sense now...

The Link Edition

Muchness to talk about! A feast of Zidane, music, resentment and secret-sharing follows; how good does that sound? Oh, so very.

Starting from the top, I have finally found the will to listen to new music again! There I was, feeling completely alienated from it, taking Life one or two albums at a time, when a few songs destroyed my ennui. These would be:

- Howling Bells – Low Happening. I personally hold them responsible for starting the wave. http://www.myspace.com/howlingbells Their whole album is actually rather excellent.
- Muse – Supermassive Black Hole. When whoever it is (Matt Bellamy? All of them? One, or all the above, plus machine?) whispers the title near the end, I think of Franz Ferdinand’s Darts of Pleasure. Darts of the pleasing kind, indeed, though is must be said that Mistuh Bellamy is rather too sweaty in the video. Is operatic rock more hair-spray than spray-on, then? http://www.myspace.com/muse
- Christina Aguilera – Ain’t No Other Man. Terrible though it is, the belief that people will swallow anything as long as it’s well-packaged is proven true here. However, it would grievously unjust to give this song no credit. A Jalapeno Popper fo’ sho’, it is gratifyingly, gratuitously gutsy. Her voice, and some inspired lexical choice (‘badass’!) , along with that fabulous, trumpet-rich groove, make ALL the difference. Good God, people have recorded many songs in this vein. Let’s see if one hand suffices for counting the number of them that were as GREAT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYXU4ebQ2w8

I also enjoyed the video of Toxic by Britterspears. I finally kind of almost saw her sex appeal to guys, though I was disturbed by how puppy-dog her eyes are in it. Toxic is a necessary lifetime viewing experience for us all. It is ludicrous (red-haired Britters) and hilarious (again, red-haired Britters… and pretty much the whole video) – and she actually gets away with black hair! http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/spears_britney/videos.jhtml

That is the link between all these random listenings – I was finally able to relax and just get into it, just ‘rock out’ a bit. All of them are Just A Little Bit Anthemic (I don’t generally do anthems, they tend towards the brainless too often. I may be an enthusiastic pursuer of Music-As-Opposed-To-Religion, but I’m no zealot).

Speaking of zealots, I will probably identify my eldest sister on here as that at some point (Zealot). My other sister (8 years older!) has garnered the selective acronym SHITW (Stupidest (or Shittiest) Ho-bag In The World. Yes I know, the W ruins it). I say selective because
a) I’ll likely forget to use it at times, and
b) Like all werewolves, she does turn sometimes. You can never tell which way it’s going to be – sometimes it’s human! And that can be quite scary.

Anyway, kind of through her, I have fallen to watching Big Cat Week on BBC1. It is immensely pleasing to see how much the presenters love their job, especially Jonathon of the cheetah team (The Cheetah Team?). He has been profiling Toto, a 7-week-old cheetah cub. Now, I hate to admit it, but Toto is really rather gorgeous. Hearts were in collective mouths yesterday as he hid in long grass, a short distance from a prowling baboon, chirping for his mother. That’s right – he chirps! ‘A tiny, birdlike call’ is how an effusive, God-thanking Jonathon described it after his mother found him safe. Watch it, people – it’s worth it! http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/bcd/

Other things of interest – The Nanny, a sitcom produced by Fran Drescher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran_Drescher . It is surprisingly funny, feel-good and charming, despite the ‘80s-ness. I am hooked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nanny_(television) – and Lily Allen. I’ve been listening to her for at least 2 months now, but her single Smile is apparently going to #1. Or already has. Whatever, I love her. She’s a little chunky, rude, funky and unforgivably cute. WORK IT! http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

Zinedine Zidane. He’s always been compelling, but even since the announcement of the World Cup finalists – whew. I am delighted at the furore his headbutt has caused, because I banged on and on about how it was odd for him, and how the cause behind it had to be established. As they ‘wrote’ on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris: Zizou, on t’aime! Zidane, we love you! You are softly-spoken and have long eyelashes and random outbursts of temper. Corblimeyphwoar, are those the nascent calls of a perverse sexual attraction I hear? Coming! http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277278&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__sport/

The secret is somewhat disappointing now. Or is it…? I bought 2 pairs of earrings for Sophie – don’t remember her getting me owt for my birthday... For some reason, I think I feel this justifies not getting her a card. Confused? You bet I am! My party piece shall be showing her one then both pairs, and asking which she wants, if not both. Oh, what comedy if she chooses neither…! >_< I plan to to hit the party for about an hour, put on a good show, all smiles – maybe even participate in some of that ‘80s karaoke (fucking hell!) – and leave in a blaze of triumph, having used her own tactics against her. HA!

Oh la la, and a bottle of rum (Life is a pigbum)

I think everyone has these episodes in your life that just seem to be wrenched from some postmodern contemporary novel (wooh, look at the big words!). Specifically cringesome chick-lit type moments, where you agree to something and then think "Why did I do that? Oh God, OHGOD, WHY?!"

Except in this case - no, it is not the wedding of a former best friend / school-time enemy / random better-off acquaintance (also probably from your days in some sort of education). Oh no - I agreed to go to Thorpe Park on August 4th for my school-time friend Katie's birthday (there, I told you, didn't I?!).

Why is this a big deal? I mean, we all DREAM of going to places like that and shakin' off the pretentiousness to live again as kiddies, right? Wrong. Firstly, I am only 18, so I don't need to be doing that just yet. Secondly, AAAAAAAAAAARGHWHY?!

OK, let me explain. There are ISSUES here. ISSUES. I am only too well acquainted with the glorious notions of self-sacrifice. I came from a culture that thrusts it at you (Indian), and I chose to drop it as though it were HOT and run like hell. Giving things up for your family is one thing. Enduring things for your friends is another. Seeing as how I'm pretty much in the s*** now, I think I'm fairly entitled to complain lots about it. This does take the piss somewhat, dammnit!

Attempting the vaguely numerical system again: firstly, I will be paying for an experience which I would avoid like the plague if it were FREE. I do not like Thorpe Park; I do not like theme parks. I admit that they are a genius rip-off, but good God are they childish and uninspired. And, anticipating anyone who tells me I'm pretentious and just scared, HELL YES, I shout out in response. Oh, YES am I pretentious, and yes I am scared (to a degree). I don't mind some rides; if people want to go on things that spin them round with all the support of a good bra, that's fine by me! I just don't think that having a minor cardiac infarction is necessary to improve my quality of life. I don't see the need to pay in order to nearly die of fear, you know? I can smell the roses just fine without it!

Secondly, I am feeling really disillusioned with all my friends. If you make sacrifices for your mates, you want to feel like they're really great and worth your time. I'm really feeling like I've outgrown all my sixth-form mates. They always want to do the same things, talk about the same things, and it just feels like utter tedium. I can't talk to them about music or films or books. I can't see them going to any gigs without complaining about the price. I'm pretty sure I'm the most politically left-wing of all of them too, which makes me nervous. It would make ANYONE nervous! Katie and Zaneta can really veer towards the right-wing sometimes, and Angela and Joanne are just like Yes-men types. Going along with everything, agreeing with them - it makes me uncomfortable.

I'm still not sure if I should go to Sophie's 80s karaoke party this Friday. Karaoke is not something I ache to spend the whole evening participating in, especially not with 80s music. Fucking hell, I wasn't even born till after half-way through, why should I care?! And SingStar is all very well and good, but everyone's psycho competitive tendencies come out, and then I feel like screaming. Yes, I've been to one of these parties before! I also end up getting stranded there because she doesn't exactly take into consideration that I don't have a car or anything. Is it wrong of me to want her to take things like that into consideration? Am I too nice? I don't do that to people. Then again, I don't invite people who dislike each other to the same party and expect them to get along just for me. Is that proactive and mature? Or is it arrogant and selfish? I really don't know. And Sophie's a good friend. It really sucks when you're struggling to see the good side of any of your friends.

Currently Depressingly Unfunny

Now, I am no genius of the comedic variety. I would like to think I make people laugh, but just as often I do the crabbish thing of hiding away and refusing to interact with anyone. I have been somewhat lacking in humour recently. This is because:
a) my mutti has gone psycho with her usual weathervane-like regularity (i.e., completely erratic and unpredictable).
b) she and my father egg each other on with beautifully predictable regularity.
c) my brother is a lazy, obsessive eejat.

Starting from the top: I have been talking ON MY MOBILE PHONE to people a few times in the past 2-3 weeks quite late, around 11 p.m. and absolute latest, until 1.00 a.m. (although I doubt any recent calls have been THAT late). I talked in a whisper, or as quietly as I could - a few times I was probably a bit louder than I meant to be. However, I was on MY phone, in my bedroom - not patrolling the passage and talking as if I want to blow the person on the other end away, like Father Dearest does. Probably about a week or two ago, someone knocked on my door a couple of times while I was talking to my beloved. I cried out (with alarm) that they should not come in (I wasn't wearing any trousers).

I got a third knock around 11.30 (methinks), followed by Mutti bursting in in her nightie and beginning to rant and rave like a mad werewolf / possessed bedsheet / red-faced loon. While I looked at her and fought alternating urges to shriek, burst out laughing and cry with the rage that was slowly filling me, she put forth her full, hypocritical glory. And I quote: "GET OFF THE PHONE! (x several) TELL ME WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO!" (Why Mother, how would that be possible if I'd hung up on them?)

She did variations of those two several times while I sassed her (she was asking for it, really). I was all "I've hung up," very nonchalantly. She started shrieking madly about taking my phone away from me. I reminded her that it was MY phone and she couldn't take it. She squawked that fine, I could take my phone and get out of the house. I was feeling utterly condescending, and embarrassed by her pathetically desperate display of emotion. I was in no mood to play the contrite kiddy, oh not at all. I don't think she liked that.

I had managed to pull my arm back by my side and cut the call discreetly, so she couldn't see who I was talking to. Unfortunately, he called me back repeatedly, and then texted as well. This, she liked. She stood before me in her heaving nightdress, psychotic gleam in eye. "Are they calling you back? Sending you messages? They want to see if you're alright, don't they? They know you're getting beats, that's why. They know you're in trouble, and they're calling back because they want to know - Is she getting slaps? Is she alright?" Psycho grin, waiting to lead into accompanying laughter. I was actually quite unsettled by this.

"I KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO!" (Now, this was the crowner. This was the absolute pinnacle; I thought I might have to swallow a knuckle to avoid laughing at her fucking hypocritical idiocy. It couldn't get any worse...)
"You're trying to befool me! (Oh hell yes, it did!) You tell lies! You tell so many lies! You try to befool us! (She was making it really hard for me to keep a straight face). But you watch, I'll take your phone when you're not expecting it, and I'll get Dad involved next time! Talking after 11 o'clock! GO TO SLEEP!" She stomped out, turning off the light as she did so, and leaving the door wide open. I got up - "TURN THE LIGHT OFF!"

"It's ALREADY off!" I yelled back. My previous emotional mélange was giving way, now filtering and distilling, into a pure snowy-white-hot anger. I waited for her to fuck right off, then I got out my Donald Duck pad and wrote my best poem in ages, called Thoughts Of Murder.
A few days later, I went to the Hard Rock Café for lunch, because they were doing their original menu at '70s prices, and I thought "Why not?" I was going out anyway. Obviously, I wasn't going to give my parents a blow-by-blow of what I did, so I mentioned that as the main point of my day. I was also late home by 20 minutes - ironically enough, we'd left London at 4.15 so that I could be home by 5.30, but the Piccadilly line had delays. I really should have known better. I should have known those psychos had an ace up their sleeves.

All seemed fairly OK, until dinner time, when we were all eating and my mum suddenly started on to my dad: "She went out to EAT today, did you know that? Only to EAT!" My dad probably said something about coursework - he loves coursework. Randomly when I want to go out and spend a little of my OWN money having fun: "Why is it necessary? Is it COURSEWORK? Do you have to meet your friends to STUDY?!" Anyway, I tried to defend myself, saying that S----- and I were hanging out - everyone does, after all - and then they started on about how I should only leave the house to go to university, or to work. Then my mum went "Right, after today, you are not going anywhere. Either you come to the shop and help us, or you stay home and do the housework and make dinner, or you go to work. Tell me what days you're working - I know you're not working every day, so don't try and lie to me - write down your schedule and give it to me."

She and my dad just work on each other, and he took his cue here. He probably said something about my being bloody ungrateful, and also possibly useless. He DEFINITELY said something along the lines of "It's enough hassle trying to GET you to come to the shop... you don't want to help ever... we have to drag you there... it's a bloody waste of our time... bloody ungrateful, useless... no respect, don't want to help even once... DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" And he waved his finger in front of my nose, millimetres from my face. "We know all about you, staring at me like that... we know what you're up to, and WHO YOU'RE WITH."

At times like that, I really really hate my parents. I fantasised about breaking his finger, or biting into it hard. They're the fucking ungrateful ones, always conveniently forgetting whenever we're good. And their novel approach to fairness! - being exercised at that very moment - insulting all of your children in one go, instead of just the one. Their idea of a compliment is to compare to you to someone - say my cousin, just to try and make trouble because we love each other so much - and tell you how you're lacking in comparison. So yes, I was banned from going anywhere to have fun. I suspected I knew what the psycho accusations of lying and 'befooling' were about: they'd seen S------- walking me home from an Ed Harcourt gig in London on June 9th.

This was confirmed when I had a shouting match with my mother the next morning. She dragged it out of me that he was there, although I would never be completely honest with her. I told her we were just 'good friends' - why the hell would you risk trusting a fucking psycho like her?! That gleam came back into her eye, when my brother came down for his breakfast at 11 (funny how "GET UP ....., IT'S 9 O'CLOCK!" doesn't apply to him), and she went "Oh you're not going to tell me in front of him, are you, huh? Huh?" Just like that, taunting me, like the fucking emotional eight-year-old she is. That little **** sat in the back room, and in keeping with her ringleader fun, she refused to get rid of him when I got angry about him being in the back room. She didn't refuse - just deliberately didn't respond to it. He heard our yelling, but I didn't care, because he's been waiting to stitch me up over S--- for years, literally. He made a point of cyber-stalking me at one point, so I could do absolutely nothing, say nothing, look at nothing, without him retrieving it and searching it for evidence. I had to go through my Deviantart journals and poems, and get rid of every last reference, no matter how subtle, AND beg all my friends to leave stupid nonsense comments to erase evidence. I couldn't even say anything on their FORUMS because he'd find it!

I ended up spewing out a whole lot of resentment - I have built up a lot of hate over the years. It made no difference of course, because a few days later my cousin invited me over, and I rang my mum to tell her a couple of hours beforehand (This after telling her thrice in the morning too). So I said, 1 or 1.30, I'll be going to P----'s house, and she was all fine, fine, whatever, just as long as you've done your chores and let us know. Which I had. So I went, had a great time, decided to stay till 4.30. I was just talking to P----, P----'s younger sister, my youngest girl cousin, when my phone went off. It was Withheld, and no-one spoke when I said hello. Then I got a text saying I had 4 new Voicemail messages. I dialled with confusion, and listened. What I heard almost made me break something.

Would you believe, it was my dad, with the following. "...., this is your dad speaking." Grand pause. "Where are you, and who are you with?" Mother muttering in background. "When are you reaching home? Immediately ring back." What fucking bullshit! My parents act like it's of utmost importance that they know where I am ALL THE TIME and make out like they were going to have a heart attack if I'm a bit late, or forgot to ring and say where I was - BUT WHEN I LET THEM KNOW, IT'S NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO WARRANT REMEMBERING. My mother actually fucking admitted it, and then tried to make the excuse of "Oh, we're old, we're senile, you always have to remind us" - then she got angry at me, for fuck's sake, and said that if it bothered me so much, I should write where I was going and stick it on the fridge! Thank God I am leaving tomorrow, until Saturday, for the Wireless Festival. Lord knows I need it.

Brasil, oh Brasil

This: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5042418.stm, sent to me by my boyfriend, has made me think a lot. Therefore I am posting it here.

Things have been nothing short of tumultuous lately. It's almost getting old. I think I am getting senile due to having a rather strange sleep pattern, although I thankfully haven't woken up in the night for the past 2-3 days. I really need to drink all the water I'm going to drink by 8pm from now on... Satkirat and I have had some 'issues,' not so much with each other as with ourselves. Call it a huge great Venn diagram of insecurity; we can both be exceedingly hyper/over-sensitive at times, and this is effectively the perfect time for blow-ups. TOM has paid me a visit (all of you should know what that means by now!) so the Deranged Psycho Bitch tendency is... somewhat more accessible than it would be normally.

I have been working a fair bit - three days a week, four last week, and I haven't been paid for probably about 9 or 10 days. That means I'm owed at least £357. That's no small amount, and I have been spending stupidly recently. Stupidly is the keyword here. I bought something like 11 tops from Uniqlo for £77 (pretty much). Hello, fucking idiocy! The worst thing is that I didn't think at all when I was doing it. There was no rebellion, no need, and no realisation that "hey, I bought about five or so tops already...!" I just bought them because my brain had become fried from being out all the time, and all day, and probably because I had nothing better to do. Boredom really is a killer. When I got to the till and they calculated the sub-total, I was like "Shit!" Then I figured it was too late to back out, so I went ahead and bought them all. I am going to go and return about 6 or 7 of them tomorrow. They're brand new after all.

Before this, I had spent £28.50 on 19 pairs of knickers from Primark, which I most deffo could not return. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson. I am totally gutted now, but I am going to make a scene in Uniqlo if they refuse to accept back their BRAND NEW TOPS. My bf was right; I just went from spending hardly anything to spending too much, and it fills me with fear. I was more than a little horrified at how my self-control evaporated in the presence of boredom.

It caused unpleasant situations, and showed me that I need to fill my time with other things. Things like reading The Watchmen, watching Chungking Express, and listening to Gilles Peterson's sessions in Brazil online (I heard some of the last show on the radio...). I quite like Brazilian music, although I've mostly just heard baile funk and bossa nova. Bossa nova might be 'middle-class music' but it makes you so happy! Anyone who doesn't believe me should just listen to Aguas de Marco by João Gilberto (it may feature Stan Getz, I think it does). He sounds so merry, like a giant bunch of fresh cherries :-D. Bebel Gilberto (yes, she's a relation, she's his daughter!) generally makes you feel that the world is beautiful and calm.

Speaking of happy music, I cannot help it - I like Lily Allen. She does look ever so slightly (endearingly, say I!) porcine on her Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic
Still, she makes music that is a bit snarky and makes you smile. She's Keith Allen's daughter (the man behind dumbass football-based hit Vindaloo), but don't hold that against her. She is summer! She also looks a teeny weeny bit like one of the winners of Strictly Dance Fever. That show is starting to depress me, because it showcases the worst thing about the mentality of the British viewing public. We love the underdog, oh yeah, we fucking LOVE the underdog. In all fairness, the gap between the two final couples was narrower than it's ever been, but logically considering what the prize is, I feel that history repeated itself one time too many.

Every goddamn series, the couple who are better suited to win don't win. This has happened on Strictly Come Dancing as well (although that's nowhere near as fun, especially because it's basically a vehicle for slebs to fawn all over each other). The couple who were consistently good, Darren and Lana, weren't quite as good on the night of the final, and lost. Never mind that they actually tried to take a risk. Darrien and Hollie - who ARE excellent dancers - performed their perfect-scoring milonga again, and then played shamelessly to their strengths (Hollie's a street-dancer...) during the freestyle. They won. They deserved to win, but the other couple actually deserved the prize itself more.

You see how bizarre it is? It's just yet another dialectical situation; does the ability to perform better on the most stressful night of the competition make you better suited to be a professional dancer? Or does being a consistently versatile and excellent performer count? Perhaps Darren and Lana are actually thus better off doing the professional-dancer-competition-celebrity route then, because they can take that many strings to their bow? Who knows? One thing I do know is that I prefer this kind of moral dilemma to several others. Even if it does involve swimming-costume-leotards, kneepads and dangerous dresses...

Too Much Contradiction

I started laughing the other day when I was listening to the new Christina Milian song, 'Say I.' Before being vilified for doing so, I would like to point out that:
a) I was ironing, and had been for a while, resulting in Frazzled Brain Syndrome. This is where your music taste heads to some tropical island for bask-sunning, and you enter the zone of 'School Disco' and 'guilty pleasures.'
b) The other options were: weird 80's-sounding pop, music that sounded like it was being played underwater, weird 80's-sounding music that sounded like it was being played underwater, and Duncan James singing clichés in a froggy voice that rendered them even more painfully obvious. I had the dubious pleasure of watching him repeat this on Strictly Dance Fever, and granted myself my first toilet break.

Anyway, there is a really great bit where she yelps:

(and I quote:)
you want to dance then get down
you tryna chill then sit down
do what you wanna to do
don't let nobody tell you what you're suppose to do

Thank you,
http://www.lyrics4all.net/c/christina-milian/so-amazin/say-i.php

I just love that hypocrisy! Blimey, when it comes out of nowhere, in a POP SONG of all the things, you know you've got to be on your guard. It is almost sublimely ridiculous that she failed to notice those two sets of directly contradictory lyrics placed right next to one another. Still, the girl can't help it, just like she can't help having a cute face which is somehow at the same time sexy to men. Although that might have more to do with her clothes' frequent habit of disappearing. Bad, bad denim-leotard-swimsuit thingy! (= video of When You Look At Me, where her cleavage made its full debut).

Moving on from 'the black Britney' (Whoever dubbed her that was surprisingly accurate...), let's hear it for Indonesia! In response to your puzzled looks, I stake http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5001786.stm

Banning public kissing? BANNING PUBLIC KISSING?! I almost laughed when I read that. It's a dangerous thing, that public kissing. You know, it could... it could.... give people ideas! Because civilised people in civilised countries don't do it! I hope you can spot the sarcasm in my tone. No, I'm sure that in places such as India, Africa and Indonesia, people don't like kissing in public. They just get pregnant three, four, five, six times... or more... and thus is born a strong and functional family unit, where girls are always manual labourers and guys just take whatever they can get. Calling those women 'homemakers' would be a little too glamorous for me.

I am so fucking DISGUSTED I can't even think. There was that, and then there was - is - this. It is a transcript of a conversation with my 'friend' Colin (friend being used in the loosest sense of the term). I'm sure you can guess who I am:

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
haha, my friend challenged me to remix an arctic monkeys track
it's really funny

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Why?

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
well I hate them...so I'm making it really cheesy and happy

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Why do you hate them again?

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
cos they're a walking cliche, and I really dislike the guy's voice

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Why are they a walking cliche?

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
well it's like if you gave a bunch of chavs with semi-musical ability some instruments, and they went off on one singing about how they don't like their shitty town. which seems to be the fad for the theme in all indie songs these days. I guess it's best to appeal to the lowest common denominator if you want to hit the big time

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Have you listened to them?

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
fo sho
I have to all the time
and all the chavs get up and sing loudly and cause trouble
I suppose that's meant to pass as irony

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Hmmm.
What's meant to pass asirony?
as irony*

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
chavs singing along to songs that are cashing in on the disgustingness of chav culture

DOCTOR WHO FANATIC, w00t w00t says:
Hmmm.
I don't really have anything to say.

Shine on benevolent son - nigga killa says:
well why would you
they're just a dumb band
I wouldn't even be bothered if they didn't play them everywhere I go out with mates

Jesus H. fucking Christ! (Sorry, Christians). I wouldn't have minded if he had just said he liked them, but you SEE that arrogance? It's quite stunning, really. I'm being very diplomatic here, going to Annoying Child mode and asking "Why?" to everything. He labels Arctic Monkeys 'chavs' presumably because they're working-class (although they're not exactly typical working-class, are they?) and probably just because people he considers chavs like them. I just looked through their album tracklist, and there is nothing about, I quote, 'their shitty town' or anything 'cashing in on the disgustingness of chav culture.' As is the case with such people, I think he's lashing out because:
a) they've got a success he can only dream of for now, and
b) he's got more in common with them than he wants to admit.

Colin is obviously pretty snobby, but he's not exactly loaded or anything, and his family are barely middle-class, so it's pretty rich of him to insult working-class people, just because he's intimidated by those in his area. Of course, his area might as well be the world for him, right? Myopic is the word. That's the most terrifying thing: there's a mix of Pathetic Old Bastard Fart-Head and stupid, spoilt useless little brat in Colin. He can be good company, very occasionally. Granted, this is usually when I can't get to anyone else to talk to them first. Hilariously enough, there seems to be a vague current of snobbery, or maybe just disdain running through the Arctic Monkeys' album too. Like father, like son, kid - like father, like son! *evil laughter*

Anyway, I have been at work all day, and thus I am lacking appropriate brainpower to prolong your misery with this post. Fly, my pretties, fly!!!

P.S.: I DID, as a point of principle, look up Rudolph Nureyev, and for your viewing pleasure have enclosed the following. http://www.christies.com/promos/nov05/7141/images/7141_lot45.jpg
Ooer, I say, ooh! RE: Boys who WORKIT: YES, YES, THRICE YES *nods like loon*.

Boys who WORKIT

Rudolph Valentino is sex. He really is. Most of youse probably won't be able to see what the fuss is about in any of the images online. I have to admit that that's completely understandable. I don't know what it is that is so goddamn attractive about him. His androgyny is definitely appealing to me; I find him a lot more interesting than many of the fey indie-boy types who are touted today. I remember seeing him onscreen at some point - and I just thought: "Who is THAT?!" very excitedly. That's extraordinarily weird for me, because I have never been one to get overwhelmed by anyone's looks. The longest crush I had on a sleb was four days (Leonardo DiCaprio), and it was only because my best friend liked him. I know, I know... but I haven't been that sad since. Rudy's the violently passionate androgyne (I know - not a real word. It should be, though.) as opposed to the slightly girly boy. They have their appeal and all, but they're just not as sexy.

Well, me being me, I got him mixed up with Rudolph Nureyev in my head (bear in mind, I don't actually know what Nureyev looks like, so it's a reasonably easy mistake to make!). Although he apparently embarked on a dance tour, so I'm not going to get the following connection from nowhere.

Men who dance. Why is it so very hah-hah-HOT?! (Those are representative of gasps, if you were wondering). Or rather, men who dance well. I find it ridiculously sexy, and I was thinking about it, and I am not the only one! Take Anton Du Beke for example - star of Strictly Come Dancing, v. famous professional ballroom dancer and dance coach on Strictly Dance Fever. He really seems to have a way with the ladies, despite looking ever-so-slightly Transylvanian (read: vampirical :-D). He has a fairly long-ish head and a VERY pointy chin. And yet! He seems to have some kind of indescribable charm that makes all his partners and many of his female students go all girly. Check this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/12/21/ftdance21.xml He is charming, and he does have a good sense of humour, as evidenced by the footage of him training one of my fave couples, Darrien and Hollie, on Dance Fever last week. He was trying to make Darrien more manly and Holly more ladylike.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/strictlydancefever/dancefever/news/2006/05/13/32186.shtml Boy, did it ever work. Darrien - I mean, not even Darren, for God's sake - is practically camper than the cast of Queer Eye... They showed him celebrating his birthday on the show, and he was all "I love Kylie!" However, the boy does dance well, and Anton did a number on his and Hollie's American Smooth routine. He also did a number on the cute and pixielike Hollie, who got all giggly and giddy whenever she danced with him - the shot of him going "Holl-ie! Go, girlfriend!" was priceless. My sister has commented (accurately) on how many of the blokes on the show have weird, fleshy faces and girly voices, and Darrien is no exception to this.

But hot damn! He and Hollie danced amazingly, and I (perversely enough) found their routine simmering. I could see a hell of a lot of passion in it, which was odd because American Smooth is generally supposed to be smooth, beautiful, lovely etc. It's a romantic dance. I have re-watched it several times, and I love it - the music, the costumes - it all works fabulously. The more I watch it, the sexier Darrien becomes. Perhaps because dance is so difficult. It is like acting, except that you're dancing and acting at the same time. You need to be the conduit for the music while mastering it. You need to let fly the full range of appropriate emotions while keeping yourself under tight control. You have to make the audience feel intensely, but only what you want them to feel, and you need to mind yourself. The man must lead, and so real grace and skill is needed. It is, then, much like finding male actors attractive, except that captivating male actors seem to be in short supply currently (well, for me anyway) and they don't, can't, have the same anonymity (read: mystery) that male dancers do.

So, returning to my first-ever post, dance expresses a range of paradoxes. When it is done well, I find it as unifying as World Cup football. The best thing is that it doesn't pit any group against any other group - apart from the obvious fact that couples are dancing against each other. Though at the time of performing, the competition aspect has very little influence. Another interesting thing is how people can within themselves recognise quite clearly what constitutes good dancing and a good performance without the kind of argument that would precede similar reactions to music (for example). Just watch the clip of Darren and Lana's Flamenco. Dear Lord, that was f****** FANBLOODYTASTIC. I started shrieking and applauding, I couldn't help it. I've also watched it maybe six times since... it's just a really fantastic, passionate performance. It makes you dance and want to dance, which is all you can ask for, really.

Anyway, I am sorry for being dead for so long, but I had exams and really bad insomnia to contend with. Plus my love-life was getting ridiculously unbalanced. It's all good now though! So I'll be back (as Arnie says. Anyone who hasn't seen the bit with him as Hamlet in Enemy of The State really should. Just that little bit. Hilarious). Dr. Who is kingly, and you can download it to your PC off the BBC website - do it people! Do it, do it, do it! TOOOOORCHWOOOOOOOD!

A Tale of Two Amrits

People! Permit yourselves to fall about (laughing? Cringing? We'll see) once I have described some of my latest adventures to you. And don’t be scared to comment - I’d love some indication that my readership does exist outside of my imagination. :-D This is a cautionary tale (kinda) about how being very honest can backfire on you. As you do (when you are SupaFly, anyway), S------- was trawling the Internet, when he found an innnteresting *cue Mr.Burns-style-finger-action* website and Myspace page. The page is called Village Indian, I offer a link to it on this blog. The Myspace is here: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=49931394

Me being me, I fired off an excitable introductory email first, and thought later. I asked lots of questions, which probably made it seem like I fanced him. Oh God. Now, he doesn't look all that on his Myspace - very skinny - but I decided to go VI and look at his picture there too,, to compare and see what I was 'up against,' if you know what I mean (which you probably don't...). Schiessenhauser! He looked v. good, and slightly as if he had stepped out of a 'conscious' hip-hop video.

It would seem that The Spectre of Fey Skinny Indie was returning. I have these phases where I get all wiggly about the likes of Alex Kapranos, and er... that's it so far (see the link for this post above!). I went extremely self-conscious and giggly, and texted my cousin about it, and also forwarded my email to my bf. See, I am a complete child - there was no imagining relationships with him, or any such rubbish. It was more:

'He's pretty.'
*tittering*
'He is!'
*more tittering*
*giggles all round*

Yes, I know. I am such a terrible girl. My cousin and I just compared his two pics and died laughing for about 10 minutes when I went to her house. However, my sense of honour eventually overcame all else. I emailed apologising, and enclosing a song I really like. Here is his reply:

'Ha. No, no worries, I've been too swamped to write you a response. Even then though, I get so many emails and such, I make it a habit to keep 'em to music (unless and until I meet people). Anyway, thanks for the Brazilian Girls! They actually got their start right down the street from me here in the East Village, at a fun club called Nublu. Born out of impromptu experimental jam sessions. They're great!A few bands we're loving here this week are Love Is All, Cloud Cult, Land of Talk - and The Walkmen were amazing last night!-A'

I was understandably freaked out, like BLEEPING HELL, he is a celebrity of the miniature variety! I got even more awed, and vowed to rarely email him. I have made good on this; he is, as he says, a busy guy. I mean, the dude goes to a gig virtually every damn day and / or night. I blame S--- - I related all this to him, and he went something like 'Well why would I worry about you fancying him?! Maybe I was worried that I would fancy him!'

Need I say more? I have always found that boy funny... ;-)

Why, oh why?

This isn't a funny post, for which I am profoundly apologetic. It is, however, quite a shockingly compelling one (I hope).

WTF?! So, what you freaks want is Lolita?! Just read the goddamn book and jerk off to it! The saddest of the bunch has to be Davecat (being born with a name like that was never going to work for him). I totally agree with the psychologist's verdict, and I also admire his professionalism. I would be so tempted to humiliate them even further! When I read this, I had a fleeting feeling of wanting to kill those men. Was this being affronted at their perverse sexual transgressions? Not really, and I suppose it's almost a good thing, if they stick with it and a teenage girl escapes in the process. I'm not saying they would definitely be rapists if they didn't have those dolls, but the motivating drive most definitely seems to be there. No, it was more out of pity for them. You want to escape rejection and the effort of a real relationship so bad, you might as well die. Although that is VERY extreme logic coming into play...

On a thankfully lighter note, Have I Got News For You is back!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_I_Got_News_For_You I love that programme, so much. The first few episodes of The Daily Show made me think it was better, but I prefer HIGNFY. It's more consistent humour-wise - although I suppose that's what happens when you only have to do it once a week as opposed to every day. I don't make a point of being a fangirl, but I can see myself going very pink and girly if I were to meet Paul Merton. Ian Hislop, I'd just want to give him a hug, and maybe even kiss his cheek. HE'S SO CUTE! He just reminds me of a kind of small, super-intelligent impish thing, with his round face and quick wit. Paul - I just love him. He's got that Capricorn thing down. He acts dozy, but he's totally NOT - it's not exactly a new comic device (Shakespeare's Wise Fools!) but he does it oh so well. His surreal little spin-off tangents - "Debenhams is shite," for example - are what make Friday night fear fever all better.

Alright, you've had your fun. Off back to Diderot!

Ackk ackk ackk

How depressing to see that despite all the hopeful eye-widening about Playboy being published in Indonesia, it has been taken as a prompt excuse for hardliners to attack it and the offices of its staff. I watched the footage of people throwing rocks at the windows, and listened to the reports of all the staff having deserted the building, thinking: Damn, what did Playboy ever do to you? It’s just a magazine! Maybe that is the problem… sex has become way too limited for these people. It’s about as fun as breathing: essential to live, but you shouldn’t think about it too hard, and you should definitely not enjoy it. Looks like morbidists (is it a word? No? So?), and extremists have something in common… Still, at least the editor is defiantly refusing to stop publication (you GO!) and the first edition sold out. Take that, you would-be-hand-holding-banning-extremists! Did anyone else just get confused by what I wrote…? Lol.

I was here going to launch a rant against the media and the current situation(s) with the NHS, but I no longer have the strength for it. That first paragraph was actually meant to be posted quite some time ago – with an appropriately-timed post of course. Instead it is time for some personal whines. I hate being bitter and / or uncertain about my feelings. My bf told me that he can’t see me until the 2nd. I tried to coax him round, and he just went “No,” straight out. For some reason, I was unable to prevent this from souring my mood. I pretended like I was fine with it, and texted saying that I would see him in a month’s time. Later I sent him a highly immature text, and then a just plain vindictive one, telling him I hated him.

And now what? I know I’m supposed to ring him, and apologise, but frankly, I don’t want to. I’m supposed to be past the point where my pride presents a problem, but I’m not. Maybe it’s just an equality thing; I can’t help thinking where he gets off telling me what to do. Why can’t I throw my weight around? But yes, you say; when I tried to, he just accepted it, making a dig about how my being mad wasn’t going to get a rise out of him. I couldn’t help thinking: Well, excuse me, when did I start dating a brick wall?! I am, like most people of a vaguely creative persuasion, having that problem where reconciling reality and the ideal becomes a real nuisance. Part of you thinks “I shouldn’t have to put up with this. I deserve better!” The other (larger) part of you thinks: “This is a compromise. Why are you being ridiculous? How selfish is it to fly into a tantrum with someone because they want time to revise for their exams? This isn’t even a real flaw, and you should be appreciative of what you have: an amazing, intelligent, funny fella who COOKS.”

So tell me, why does that not cut the mustard for me? WHY ISN’T IT WORKING?! Why can’t I let this go, and agree that he needs his revision time, and I mine? Well, there are actually several reasons for that...
1) I have really bad insomnia at the moment. I can’t remember when it started, but it was on and off before that anyway. I’m not sure when I slept last night, but when I checked my progress (how long have I been bored stiff and unbearably awake? OH, IT’S 4 A.M.! So that’ll be 19-and-a-half hours then…), it wasn’t looking good. I don’t think I slept after that either.
2) There is NOTHING to eat in the house. I mean, literally nothing. The other day, do you know what we had for lunch? Pasta made with a watered-down ready-made sauce (which wouldn’t even have been there if it hadn’t been for my foresight several months earlier) with grilled tofu, fake chicken pieces and kidney beans. The sauce was tomato and had mushrooms in it. Mmmm! Doesn’t it sound fantastic! If that was all we were eating, I swear to God I would have chucked it on the roof, just like I used to do with my cheese-and-mango-chutney sandwiches in primary school.
3) A combination of the two has made me feel extremely witless and unable to concentrate. My exams are two weeks away and I cannot focus at all. I can’t even cry properly. I CANNOT MAKE TEH EYE-WATERS! When you go from eating fruit all the time and being happy and energetic, to having to eat junk and then reducing your diet drastically because you can’t hack eating junk, it really does make you feel shite. I napped for an hour today without even realising, and I’m dreading everything. My essay, my exams, my sister’s imminent engagement… God.

It’s 7.30 p.m., and yet again I’ve done nowhere near enough. I feel a desperate cry for help emerging; what will take for sleep to come to me?! I exercise; I try not to eat too late (although I have limited control over that)… what else? It’s hard to avoid stressing, but I don’t even think I’m doing that too much…

Oh well, I have my cousin and The O.C (and Doctor Who, which is back at last!!! And Strictly Dance Fever) to see me through this time. Next time, I’ll be more fun, my dear blog!

Cheese, glorious cheese

Halloumi cheese is utterly, utterly great. I can’t sing its praises enough. I was slightly suspicious of it when I found out that it makes a good grilling cheese, as paneer does, and well – hello, Mr. Flavour? You dead in there?! Let’s just say that it has some things in common with mediocre varieties of mozzarella, taste-wise.

Yes! I am a cheesyphile. I like trying cheeses. I’m not freakish about it; I mean you won’t find me breathing heavily over tablets of Gloucestershire Cheddar, or snuffling wetly up against a fine Roquefort, too close for comfort, in a tailcoat. I do however like trying new varieties when I can because cheese is quite important to me, being a veggie, and because good cheese generally tastes rather good.

(Although, I DID have a ‘moment’ in Marks & Spencer in my lunch-break at work once, where I saw these packaged sticks of cheese with herbs in that you could buy for your lunch, and I got excited, and my ‘colleague’ Zoë went “Ughhh… you’re weird!” “Thank you,” I replied mentally. I have, however, noticed that such replies do not seem to endear me to people, so I attempted some kind of explanation, and then just headed off in search of mousse).

Anyway, halloumi cheese is made of cow, sheep AND goat’s milk, comes with wet stuff in the packet (whey? Curd? Whurd?), and has mint in it, but the mint takes on a whole new life in its presence. It tastes just as delish the second time I have it as much as the first. That’s MAJOR. It also proved to have (possible) interesting side-effects, as I drank two glasses of water before eating some and had a ‘Lemon Cheesecake’ yoghurt, and my butt started fizzing. MY BUTT STARTED FIZZING. Before anyone gets grossed out, nothing happened, AWRIGHT?! *puts on Vinnie Jones forehead* It was just quite amusing.

Today, when walking back from buying my lunch at work (low-fat spinach and ricotta cannelloni with a pack of low-fat sour cream and chive crisps and a chocolate sponge pudding for dessert, OH YEAH), I saw a poster for Ice Age 2 on the side of a bus.

Before anyone gets scared that this is me being funny – I saw a poster for Ice Age 2 on the side of a bus, and you know what, I actually felt quite pained. I felt like I could almost be a film critic. Any longer, and I might have started making pained French-type sounds and gesticulating wildly with my hands, while actually speaking Italian exactly like the snarky pizza chef in The Simpsons. I understood all the critical whining about ‘slapstick’ taking precedent over anything else in the film. The advert showed the hapless squirrel from the first film’s face in close-up, fearful as his reaching for the ever-elusive acorn prompted the ice beneath him to break. “He Never Thaw It Coming,” the bus announced gleefully to me.

I wanted to cry, I really did. And not for the bloody squirrel either. It was just like “WHYYYY? WHYYYY DO THEY THINK WE’RE SO DUMB?!” Any second then and you would’ve expected Charlie Chaplin to pop up, dancing very disturbingly and trying to smack me over the head with his umbrella. He is slapstick for so many. Yet he couldn’t be more different from Ice Age 2. I thought of the sketch we watched in RTI (one of my English courses – stands for Reading, Theory, Interpretation) tied in to The Communist Manifesto, where Chaplin plays a man who becomes so obsessed with getting his work of tightening nuts with spanners right that he ends up going INSIDE the actual machine, and comes out having tightened all the internal bolts. He then chases after his co-workers, tightening their noses, then spots a lady going past and runs after her. Luckily, she escapes. He stands on the street, and then we see a big woman (not big as in fat) coming towards him, the two large buttons on her chest prominent and obviously symbolic.

It sounds very much in poor taste – exploitative, overly simplistic and arrogant. However, not just the context in which we watched it – as supportive of Marx’s argument that work eventually alienates the labourer from himself – but the expression on Chaplin’s face made all the difference. He has always fascinated me because he is a legendary comedian, but I often thought his eyes were quite sinister. He never really smiled when making other people laugh, and there was a terrifying kind of blankness to his eyes, as if he was not even exerting himself, more detached and doing it for fun. Chaplin laughs at us as we laugh at him. Yet in this film, there was a hint of fervour, of delusion threatening to overtake that blankness. It was now just sad – he was completely gone from reality.

I think that was what made it so funny for us. I don’t think the element of Schadenfreude at this man’s collapse was what did it. It was that it was terrifying. The best comedy tends to be tinged with darkness. I don’t know whether that’s a cliché or not, and I don’t care. It’s very true for me. Just like the line about having to suffer to be beautiful. I got my eyebrows threaded yesterday. Eye-watering anyone?

Oh well, my top guilty pleasure (The O.C) is on its way, so I am OFF. Byebyeees!

Spatulalalas

‘Lo peoples, I have decided to grace your snippet of remaining weekend with my presence. Ow, I cut myself on a soup can. Damn innocuous-looking Potato and Leek! How creamy and weirdly beige you looked. How saltily you tasted. How bloody you rendered the side of my right first finger. Erlack.

I ended up sucking a bit of my blood. Does this make me a vampire? Or more specifically, an Am-pire? This makes me recall both Amperes and umpires. I think one measures pressure and the other’s a unit of it…

Oh, I’ve done it now. I can hear various scientific communities being roused to action to kill me with their spatulas. That would, quite literally, be a flat and possibly powdery death. Flat and powdery like… floury mashed potatoes. Which, as anyone knows, aren’t actually flat. Damnation!

I seem to be slightly nutso from lack of sleep. This is partly because of my bf; he and I are both so very clever, and because we are verr verr clever, we choose to argue at 11p.m. at night.
For two hours or more. When I have to get up for work at 7.15 a.m. the next morning...

Yesterday we set some kind of new record, where he cried several times, and we talked until 2.30 a.m. How I keep my brains about me at such a time of the morning is quite anyone’s guess. Generally, I do druggies proud with the sort of things I produce when I am required to converse at these times. Things like, to the tune of Karma Chameleon by Culture Club: “Lalalala, chameleon…” then I toot the kazoo bit, much as other people might blow raspberries. On another random tangent, my mutti hath procured an umbrella named “Feed My People” from somewhere / nowhere in particular, and I could not help thinking that it would be mildly humorous to use it to try and split a loaf of bread into slices, much like Moses (“Let my people go…”) with the Red Sea, but I’ll just stop now…

What are you looking at me like that for? :-D Anyway, returning to not only airing my dirty laundry, but having it dragged backwards through a bush by the neighbour’s dog with me still attached (now isn’t that a grand image?!), my love life has been more loco than moi recently. It would do Road Runner proud, the way it hath pinged about everywhere. We’ve been on and off something like 5 times in the past two days. Us being us though, we love each other too much to be off for real. It’s more like long silences, vaguely psychotic moodswinging, and reticence...

All is good now, thus I resemble some kind of small, energetic rodent – Oh my God, I just saw a highly-toned stomach on the TV! This can but be one of various Indian TV award ceremonies – Vatika Star Parivaar Awards (on the ever-popular Star Plus!). These tend to run for about 3 hours, and not actually be very much about the awards. It’s actually an excuse to watch various randoms dancing onstage to Bollywood golden oldies and current hits. They do several of these award ceremonies around the same time. Why?! How many beautiful, maniacally-grinning people do you want to see bouncing at one time?!

HAHAHA, this girl (who is surprisingly odd-looking in real life) just won an award which she clearly wasn’t expecting, and she had the best look on her face. It was a cross between: “Oh my God, I’m a social leper now,” and “Who weed on the floor?!” :-D

I also just saw a woman with DYED RED (that means rusty orange) HAIR, and half of her head was covered with silver stars. Covered, I tell you! She could’ve stood in beautifully for the American flag if it wasn’t so terrifying / 'WTF?!'.

One big quibble I have with India is the way they dress there. Bootcut flares? On MEN?! Why would you do that? It’s so wrong. So, so wrong! They also tend to love wearing all white – this little actor man who they showed dancing in a preview was dressed in an attempt at a biker jacket in red plastic fantastic (sorry, I mean, PVC or vinyl… God knows what it really was). With random sparkly silver dots. Underneath was a white vest, with matching tight white trousers. The overall effect was of a grasshopper, gone badly wrong. Now he actually is dancing, and I for one was completely fooled. I thought he was performing some kind of elaborate exorcism ritual with intense concentration. Guess those pants are tighter than I thought…

They wear muscle shirts a lot there too. It’s hilarious. You almost want to model the female equivalent – you know, the ones that are always in the shops and assume that you have no discernible breasts, and if you do, make your arms look like hams and your boobs like lifebuoys – and point your bazookas, I mean basoomas, threateningly at them. Except that they would probably enjoy it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have DANCING! I still can’t help being both frightened and awed by it. I could probably record this, slow it down, turn it a bit grainy and black-and-white, then unleash it upon the ‘Net to great success: “When Fitness Videos Go Bad.” Just when you think you’ve got the blokes’ amazing aerobic manoeuvres pegged – oh I know that, it’s from Karen Voight’s Strong Smooth Moves! – they turn up the energy, and then it’s Stampeding Rhino Attacks, Aaargh Help Me Before He Stamps On My Foot, It Dies And I Need Amputation.

Too long, too long! I’ve surprised myself! Oh well, it is 22:44 (funny, dat!) so I bid ye goode nighte, and urge thee to bed ye selves, oh me giddye Godde’s pyjarmas.

Carry on crapness

Slightly continuing yesterday's theme of people murdering Shakespeare, the adverts for the Clay Oven that come on Star Plus (#1 Indian channel that I'm pretty sure is free in India, but that you can pay for and get on Sky here, as my parents have) are ridiculous. They seriously have to be seen to be believed. There are some that ape well-known Indian love stories (such as that of Devdaas, and Anarkali). Then - why, oh why did they do it?!! - there's a couple with 'Romeo' and 'Juliet'.

'Juliet' (who also doubles as Anarkali, interestingly enough) is dressed, for some reason, in a bright, salmon-pink gown with big sleeves, with several buttons and a string of beads the exact same colour. Why do I feel that the vintage / boho look (the Indian appropriation of it, nonetheless) was not what Shakespeare would have envisaged in the sixteenth century? She also has a TIARA on - I don't recall her being royalty (even rock royalty! ;-P).

I really wish I could find a link to these adverts... if anyone does, let me know. Anyway, the bulk of my criticism is being reserved for Romeo, who I shall now duly tear into. He's wearing a lilac poet's shirt in some kind of silky material. He has a 'curtains' haircut. He could well pass for a 40-something, and is probably in his late thirties. C'mon now, that's just sad. At least Juliet looks like she could be early twenties! Last but not least, he is one of the ugliest guys I've seen on Indian TV, and that's saying something. They really don't seem to have quite as much of a yen for good-looking, fair-skinned guys as they do for pretty, fair-skinned girls. Funny that...

But Romeo - Romeo has SIDEBURNS and GOOFY TEETH. He also seems to have difficulty with adequate facial expressions (I feel as if he would probably rather gnaw his lower lip - he seems to be fighting the urge to do as such). When Juliet gets cross at him in the second advert (which isn't as bad as the first, but still quite rubbish), he grins in this painful way. PAINFUL, people! As if he's trying to think, but it's hurting him. It probably is, if he has any realisation of just how bad the script is, and it would with a script that utterly shite:

*crappy music that sounds like a very muted choir in the background*
*Romeo appears beneath Juliet's balcony*
*some confusing scuffle of movement takes place in which you could SWEAR that Juliet had just lifted Romeo clean over the balcony - Well, she does look rather stout in that other advert - and that he nearly kicks her in the face while getting down*

ROMEO: Oh, my darling Juliet, this wait is getting more and more painful now! [He seems to slur on 'getting' - have performance pressures pushed him to drink?!] I wonder, when this wait will get over?

Get over? This wait will 'get over'? What, has it broken up with someone? Or is it physically trying to get over a hurdle? Good freakin' grief.

JULIET: [almost breathlessly - clearly she's been waiting a while for this moment...] It's obvious, Romeo - when you book our wedding at the Clay Oven!

[Sappy grins all round, followed by never-more-timely product placement].

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Juliet comes across in Shakespeare's play as quite demure and diligent - she's all eager to marry Whatsisname-the-Nurse-fancies for her parents at one point (OK, so it's acted, but on the whole, she DOES try to keep them happy). She and Romeo have a coy, then tender interaction; not one so painfully fake that you could pick it up and whack your grandmother across the face with it. I myself was so profoundly embarrassed for the scriptwriter that I gawped in stunned amazement the first time I saw it. Then, as it sunk into my brain, I burst out laughing (in horror!). The first time my sister saw it, she went 'Oh my God,' as if physically pained, and irritated, (followed by something I can't remember which has been dubbed over with mumbling in my mind), 'so crap!' This may have been followed by a question as to why they were doing this.

The second advert will now be laid bare for your pleasure, with my mental commentary being interwoven into it:

JULIET: Oh Romeo, where wert thou when thy love Juliet DRANK POISON?!

ME: Sock it to 'im, girl! Er... I mean... did she really say that thy, or was it 'your'?

Eh, she probably just gave up half-way... Oi, referring to yourself in the third person does not make you sound clever, authentic, or Elizabethan.

She is looking well for someone who just 'drank poison' and had to pretend to be dead for several hours...

Since when was Juliet the voice of Romeo's conscience? Quite a creepy development if you ask me...

If Romeo looked like that, why would you wait so long for him anyway?! I'd marry the other guy, love!

ROMEO: [gazing geekily upwards with the same expression from the first advert - so geeky it's unforgivable. Is he on Prozac?!] Oh, my darling Juliet, [grrr!] I was busy! Planning our wedding at the Clay Oven.

[Juliet grins with relief] - Why?! She's getting married to Sideburns Central!

Since all this will no doubt be getting to you as much as it got to me (:-P), I'm now going to tell you of a way to cheer yourself up during outbreaks of level-5 cabin fever, Post-Cacky-Advert-Traumatism-Syndrome, or just of good, plain ol' insanity.

Changing the words to songs in your head! What else did you think I would say? This is best done with songs you don't like - I mean, with so many forgettable bubblegum tunes, your new words can craft a masterpiece instead of the usual collage of "baby" "uhh" "love" "need," etc. I decided to do this to I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, because I realised it had infiltrated my brain at a time when I was defenceless (i.e., just woken up).

So. This is how the new version would go:

NICK: Sell me limes -

THE OTHER 'BOYS': Ain't nothing but a cheesecake...

NICK: [upping the intensity] ... sell me limes!

THE OTHER 'BOYS': [hot on his tail] Ain't nothing but a cheesecake!

NICK: [about to burst a lung] SEELLL ME LY-EEMES!

ALL THE 'BOYS': And I never want to hear you say! I baked it that a-way...

As Georgia Nicholson would say, cheers, thanks, goodnight!